Monday, 18 January 2016

Now We Are Seven

There's plenty of talk about work/life balance these days. No one mentions work/life/blog balance, however. It seems like Radix has fallen victim to an egregious lopsidedness of the latter. Work commitments, family illness, all combined with a slothful nature and inborn lethargy, have conspired to leave my blog unupdated for one whole year. Keep this up and I could win a Darwin Award for blogging.

Just like A A Milne's poem 'Now We are Six', in which the author expresses the desire to remain at the age of six in perpetuity, it seems as though my blog is following suit. That's not to say that I haven't been continuing my root researches, albeit in an attenuated, fitful and truncated fashion. I just haven't managed the transfer from mud-encrusted notebook to blog. As I write, I'm struggling to remember how this digital interface actually works..... So I find myself on the eve of this blog's seventh birthday, attempting to reassert its existence. Not drowning, but waving.

One project that has occupied me over the last year, is the Guild of Oca Breeders, an attempt to set up a Europe-wide oca breeding collective and citizen science project. Last year, we sent out about 150 seedling varieties to people from Spain to Sweden. We're still waiting to analyse the data, but it confirms what I already knew: most people are much better growers than I am. There's a mini backlog of a few unpublished posts that I really ought to tidy up and publish, too.

So like Bobby Vee (before my time, natch) and his rubber ball, I'll come bouncing back to you. Soon, anyway. Hopefully.

About Me

I'm a botanist and horticulturist with a longstanding interest in edible and useful plants. I founded an alternative seed company called Future Foods and I also worked in the Heritage Seed Library at Ryton Gardens, HDRA, growing heirloom vegetables for distribution to the members. I'm the only person I know who has tried to grow Japanese knotweed and failed.
Other interests include walking, cycling, music and natural history.